Cinema: The New Pictures: Sep. 4, 1933

(3 of 3)

Outmoded in other respects, Director DeMille still has two assets which his confreres may well envy—an unabashed sincerity, an utterly individual style. Even in so poor a picture as This Day and Age, DeMille's crowd scenes, his overemphatic tricks of narration, his kindergarten dialog, produce a queer effect of compelling attention without being in the least convincing. After seeing the picture audiences should be better able to credit the most recent additions to the Hollywood saga about DeMille. Back from a preview of The Sign of the Cross, in which the thing the crowd liked best was Charles Laughton's brilliant high comedy performance as Nero, Director DeMille whispered sadly to a confrere: "I have something terrible to tell poor Charlie. The audience laughed."

Bitter Sweet (British & Dominions) is a lavender-scented reproduction of Noel Coward's operetta about a girl who married a young musician, became a dancer at the Viennese cafe where he led the orchestra, attracted the attentions of a lecherous captain, had her heart broken when the captain stabbed her husband to death. With much more charm than most British musicomedies—which are inclined to be prim and lazy—Bitter Sweet is notable chiefly for its blonde leading lady, Anna Neagle, a onetime chorus girl. The producers of the cinema version of Bittersweet which Noel Coward insisted be made in England, chose her for the leading role in preference to Evelyn Laye or Jeanette MacDonald. Aside from a contract to play the title role in British & Dominion's forthcoming Nell Gwynne and a bad habit of twitching her paws, Anna Neagle has all the requisites for a speedy trip to Hollywood.